


Koi No Yokan; 恋の予感

by ymra



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Atsuhina if you squint - Freeform, Dreaming of your future selves, Dreams, M/M, Mentioned Miya Osamu, Pining Miya Atsumu, Pining Sakusa Kiyoomi, Sakusa Kiyoomi-centric, characters are very ooc tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 08:34:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24966781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ymra/pseuds/ymra
Summary: Wherein Sakusa dreams of his future selves and discovers a little something along the way.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 48
Kudos: 407





	Koi No Yokan; 恋の予感

**Author's Note:**

> so i actually had this idea for a while but i never really put it into words until now lmao
> 
> this is the first fic i've ever posted so pls be nice to me
> 
> i hope you enjoy the fic uwu

_恋の予感_ _; KOI NO YOKAN_

_The sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall in love._

Sometimes, Sakusa thinks he knows what it’s like to love.

He’s seen it before, he thinks, in the memories he has of his family, in the little glances between couples that walk the halls of his school, in the mother and child he passes on his way to school. He’s seen it before—somewhere, everywhere, anywhere—in front of his eyes, just out of his reach.

Sometimes, the feeling is there, and he thinks he knows what it’s like to submerge himself in it.

_Like an uncomfortable weight on your chest._

It’s there, sometimes, but Sakusa never really knows what to do with it.

* * *

Time feels like an illusion, dripping away like water gripped tightly in clasped hands and leaving its mark on the path that is Sakusa’s life.

It’s always present, reminding Sakusa of things he doesn’t want to remember, of things he doesn’t want to know—it reminds him of memories, of hooded eyes and foxlike smirks, of practicing volleyball so much he can feel the sting of his palms even when he’s asleep.

Time is always present, and it’s the first time Sakusa has felt its _lack_ of present.

He doesn’t know how to explain the feeling—has never been particularly good at vocalizing his feelings, anyway—and supposes that the feeling is best described as everything freezing, like music that has been paused halfway or a school during summer vacation.

It’s an uneasy feeling; yet, somehow, it feels freeing as well.

It’s with that feeling that Sakusa wakes up, black eyes focusing on the high ceiling where sunlight is filtering in through the cracks. It stirs up some unforgotten memory in Sakusa’s heart, a tiny whisper of something he’s kept locked away.

_You know this place_ , his heart whispers, coaxing and gentle, like a kitten bumping its head on its owner’s hand begging to be touched, begging to be noticed. _Remember it, Kiyoomi,_ it says, _remember it_ —

“Oh, you’re awake,” a deep voice cuts through the voice in his heart, echoing around the vast space and giving the illusion that it’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

_That voice_ , Sakusa thinks in alarm, snapping his eyes away towards the source of the voice in shock. He jolts up almost immediately when he meets the other person’s eyes, eyes that are identical to his in every single way.

Sakusa knows this person, has seen that face before, has seen it when he looks in the mirror every day. He looks older, more mature, but it’s undeniably, inarguably, _himself_. 

“You—” Sakusa starts, his shock rendering him speechless, frozen in his own skin. He stares and stares at the person in front of him, seeing but refusing to comprehend how it’s possible, how he’s seeing an older version of _himself_.

“Hello, Kiyoomi,” the man, Kiyoomi himself, says.

“ _How_ —?” Sakusa demands or, well, tries to. His voice comes out in a cracked whisper, barely even audible if not for the silence of the place they’re in.

“You meet your future self, and that’s your first question?” Kiyoomi asks in amusement, the small tilt at the corners of his lips gives Sakusa the illusion that’s he’s smirking at him, laughing at the question he’s been asked. “You’re _dreaming_ , Kiyoomi,” he then answers, an afterthought if Sakusa has ever heard one. “Shouldn’t you know why I’m here if it’s _your_ dream we’re in?”

_You know, Kiyoomi, you know. Remember why_ —

Sakusa silences the voice in his heart and stares his future counterpart down, “I don’t,” he deadpans. “All I know is that I fell asleep while taking a bath.”

Kiyoomi hums and nods like he doesn’t really believe Sakusa. He looks up at the ceiling with narrowed eyes, like he’s trying to understand something. “Then,” he says slowly, returning his attention to Sakusa, “do you know where you are?”

“You just told me I’m dreaming,” Sakusa brushes the question off easily. He knows there’s an answer Kiyoomi wants to hear, an answer his heart is desperate to tell him, but he doesn’t want say it, doesn’t want to hear it. “This is a dream,” he reiterates.

“A dream,” Kiyoomi parrots almost immediately, lilting the words like he’d _known_ it was what Sakusa had wanted to say, before he’d said it.

_He knows everything about you_ , his heart tells him, _knows your fears, your desires—he’s you and he_ knows _._

_But, he’s not really you_ , his head then tells him, _this is a dream and he’s just a version of you; not_ essentially _you_.

_A dream_ , he thinks. _A nightmare_.

His heart pounds in his chest, pestering him and eating away at the carefully structured logic he’d concocted. He hates this part, he thinks, the part where it looks like his heart is going to overrun his head, his mind, his logic, with ideals that will only ever be ideals.

“How do I wake up?” Sakusa asks instead, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. It makes him feel smaller, safer, under the sunlight and the calculating stare of his older self.

“I can’t tell you that,” Kiyoomi answers, a small smile on his face as he looks at the frown that’s gradually making its way onto Sakusa’s. “But I assume you’ll wake up after you’ve finished what you came here for.”

“I don’t _feel_ like I need to do anything,” Sakusa insists. “I’m here in this place with the cracked ceiling and weird floors and I don’t _know_ what I’m supposed to do. I don’t even know where I _am_.”

“You can’t see this place?” Kiyoomi asks in alarm, sitting up straighter. He looks at Sakusa, really _looks_ , because Sakusa can see something in Kiyoomi’s eyes, something that reminds him of himself when he’s doing a particularly difficult puzzle and the pieces just can’t seem to fit.

“I see it,” Sakusa huffs in reply. He sees the cracked ceiling with the sunlight, the smooth floors that vaguely remind him of volleyball courts, and the seemingly unending brightness that surrounds him and Kiyoomi. He sees everything that he should, yet there’s still a nagging feeling in his heart telling him there’s something _more_.

“You don’t,” Kiyoomi counters almost immediately. “You see the ceiling and the court, but you can’t see anything else, can you?” he says. “You think we’re surrounded by _nothing_.”

Sakusa narrows his eyes and frowns deeper. He hates how irritatingly knowing Kiyoomi seems to be, how he pretends he knows exactly what Sakusa is thinking about. “That’s because there’s nothing to see.”

Kiyoomi huffs out a laugh of pure disbelief. “There’s _everything_ to see, Kiyoomi,” he says, shaking his head with a sigh when it’s clear that Sakusa refuses to listen. “I had this same dream years ago,” he reveals, looking around the empty space. “I thought this place was empty, too, the same ceiling, same floors. The difference is, I saw more than you did.” He pauses, turning to Sakusa with a thoughtful look, “I wonder how much conflict there is in your heart for you to see so little of your own dreamscape.”

Sakusa looks up at the ceiling, then at the ground beneath him. Kiyoomi had called the ground ‘the court’, and the only place Sakusa can really think of is a volleyball gymnasium. The ceiling looks a little familiar, but he doesn’t remember being to a volleyball gymnasium with open ceilings.

_Think, Kiyoomi, think about why it looks so familiar_ , his heart sings, thrumming an irregular rhythm in his chest.

_Don’t listen to your heart_ , his head tells him coldly, _bad things happen when you do_.

Sakusa swallows thickly and looks away from the ceiling, feeling a heavy weight on his chest. He suddenly doesn’t want to know why he’s in this dream.

“Kiyoomi,” his older counterpart cuts off the rush of thoughts in his mind. “Let’s talk.”

“I don’t have anything to talk to you about.” Sakusa feels his throat close up as he diverts his eyes away from Kiyoomi, looks at anything _but_ him and those knowing eyes of his.

“Really?” Kiyoomi questions, lifting his eyebrows in a disbelieving sort of way. “Then _I’ll_ talk, and you’ll listen.”

The way Kiyoomi is staring at him makes him feel exposed, laid bare for everyone to see. It’s a feeling he doesn’t like, has never liked. It makes him vulnerable, weak, like a house of cards that’ll topple over at the slightest push.

“I have a feeling I won’t want to listen,” Sakusa replies drily.

Kiyoomi huffs out a soft laugh, “Could you try for once in your life to not be so blunt?” he asks, teasing, good-natured and far too un-Sakusa-like. “But, I swear, if you talk to me, you’ll be able to wake up sooner. And, who knows, you might even end up not wanting to wake up at all.”

_Unlikely_ , Sakusa snorts. He wants to wake up from this nightmare as soon as he can.

“What do you want to talk about, then?”

Kiyoomi grins when he sees that Sakusa is willing to go along with his plans, and continues on with the conversation. “Let’s talk about Miya Atsumu.”

A picture of the setter flashes through his head, and it makes Sakusa grimace in disgust.

_No_ , Sakusa wants to say, to reject. It’s enough to be plagued by thoughts of Miya Atsumu when he’s awake—he definitely does not need to be plagued by dreams of him as well.

“He’s annoying,” is the only comment Sakusa’s willing to give regarding Miya. Then, as an afterthought, tacks on, “Can we not talk about him.”

“Why?” Kiyoomi prods, asking the question Sakusa really doesn’t want to answer. “Why don’t you want to talk about him, Kiyoomi?”

Sakusa swallows at the stern voice his future counterpart used. _Because_ , he thinks bitterly, _he makes my heart beat faster, because he makes it hard for me to breathe, because he makes me want to be a better player, a better person, because, because, because—_

_Because he’s Miya Atsumu_ , his heart concludes for him.

No other words are needed, no other words needed to be said. He hates the feeling of suffocation whenever he thinks about Miya Atsumu—that’s it, that’s all.

He thinks Kiyoomi knows, too, about the thoughts that run through his head, what with the way he’s smiling at him, pityingly, understandingly. It rubs Sakusa the wrong way and he just wants that look to disappear of Kiyoomi’s face because it reminds him too much of his own, of what he sees when he looks into the mirror.

He hates all of this so fucking much.

“Kiyoomi,” the older counterpart starts, “what are you so afraid of?”

The sentence hits him like a ton of bricks, like a cracking whip, slashing through the air in a fearsome spiral and making Sakusa flinch.

_What are you afraid of, Kiyoomi?_ The voice in his heart repeats, sounding more and more like his own voice and less and less like a monstrous growl.

“Nothing,” he seethes out, stomping down the rebellious cries of his heart and locks it up, quiets it down until it’s nothing more than a steady _thump, thump, thump_ that he feels when he presses his palms against his chest. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“I’m surprised your denial is stronger than mine,” Kiyoomi muses. “Even though I shouldn’t be, considering how you can’t even see your own dreamscape in full.” He gestures to the vast expanse around them, “It’s funny to me how different we are, even if we’ve shared the same history.”

Sakusa wraps his arms tighter around his legs and looks away, “Just because we have the same past, doesn’t mean we’ll have the same future.”

“I know,” the answer comes faster than Sakusa expected. This is the first time he’s heard Kiyoomi sound so defeated, like a bad memory has arisen in his head, one that Sakusa doesn’t know yet. “You’ll know what I’m talking about when you meet them—the other versions of us.”

“Then—”

“I’m trying to prevent you from being unhappy,” Kiyoomi says in determination, answering the question that never left Sakusa’s lips. “Being happy is really nice, Kiyoomi—you should let yourself be happy.”

“I _am_ happy,” Sakusa replies, suddenly defensive. He’s playing volleyball, is one of the top three spikers in Japan, his team had won _nationals_ , he’s at _Youth Camp_ —he’s happy. He doesn’t need a wannabe version of himself to tell him he isn’t. He’s happy. He’s—

_Are you really?_ His heart questions.

Kiyoomi sighs, “Oh, Kiyoomi,” he says, smiling sadly. “Let me show you something,” he says, his voice gentle, soft in a way Sakusa never knew his voice could be.

“Show me?” Sakusa asks. “Show me what?”

“My version of the future,” Kiyoomi answers. “A future where you’re the 24-year-old Sakusa Kiyoomi, outside hitter for the Black Jackals and,” —he turns to look at Sakusa before speaking, carefully, gingerly— “Miya Atsumu’s boyfriend.”

Sakusa recoils at the sentence as if bitten by the words, “ _What_?” he sneers, pushing himself far away from Kiyoomi. Somehow—he doesn’t know why—he feels cheated, lied to by the one person he’d thought he could actually trust.

“Kiyoomi—”

“ _Why_?” Sakusa demands, his face twisted into an ugly snarl. The shock of the revelation resonates deep in his bones and makes him shudder in nothing but absolute disgust. The fact, the _reality_ , that his future self is dating Miya is repulsive, so fucking repulsive that he can’t understand it, doesn’t really want to understand it, doesn’t even want to _think_ about it.

_But you do understand why, Kiyoomi_ , his traitorous heart sings, thrumming in excitement. _You know why he’s dating Atsumu. You know, you know, you know—_

“Be _cause_ ,” Kiyoomi starts, and he sounds so sure of himself that Sakusa listens, for once, attentively, “he makes us happy.”

There’s that word again, Sakusa thinks in distaste. _Happy._ As if he isn’t currently happy doing what he’s doing, being where he is. As if his happiness is less than the happiness Kiyoomi has. As if it doesn’t _matter_.

“I’ll show you, Kiyoomi,” Kiyoomi finally says, as if he’s made up his mind. He stands up and reaches his hand out towards Sakusa, “I can’t take you to the future, because I’m asleep now, too,” he tells him, “But I can show you my memories—bits and pieces of them, at least—to give you an insight of what you could have, if you choose the same path I had chosen.” He smiles down at Sakusa, a kind smile that reminds Sakusa of his older siblings when they dote on him—patient and gentle, like he would understand even if Sakusa were to decline him.

“What would you show me?” Sakusa asks, staring at the outstretched hand skeptically. His heart is beating fast in his chest, and everything suddenly feels more real than it’s ever been, as if this really is reality and not just a dream.

“I don’t know,” Kiyoomi admits truthfully. “When I had the dream, my subconscious seemed to know exactly what I needed to see—I think it would be the same for you.”

Sakusa still has some doubts about the whole thing. He doesn’t know if he wants to see one of his possible futures, doesn’t know if he wants to see a future where Miya Atsumu is in it, but—

_You’re curious, aren’t you, Kiyoomi?_ The whispers in his heart come to a crescendo and, before Sakusa can regret it, he places his hand into his older counterpart’s and feels his vision go dark.

It takes just a single moment for Sakusa to tumble into nothingness.

* * *

When the darkness recedes, Sakusa finds himself standing in the middle of a bedroom, disorientated and mind hazy, like his limbs are made of jelly and his entire spirit detached from his body.

He looks around the room with furrowed eyebrows, drinking in the unfamiliar room and all its little nooks and crannies. It feels like he’s been here before, somehow, yet Sakusa knows he’s never seen this room before, never been here, never touched the surface of that desk or pasted the polaroid pictures on the walls.

Yet, somehow— _somehow_ —Sakusa thinks he’s been here before.

“It’s not that it’s familiar to you,” Kiyoomi chimes in from beside Sakusa. He’s leaning against a side of the wall, next to the window with the ugly mustard-colored curtains. “Your subconscious just _thinks_ it is because it’s trying to make sense of _why_ there’s a version of you here. It’ll pass once it gets accustomed to this memory.”

The explanation doesn’t seem to do much explaining because Sakusa still feels like his head is unattached to his body, still feels homesick for a place he’s never been in, but he accepts the explanation, thinking it would make more sense than to yearn for a place that doesn’t belong to him.  
  


“Why are we here?” Sakusa finally asks when his brain finally restarts and words don’t feel like static inside his head. “It—” he starts, then stops when his eyes land on the suspiciously Sakusa-shaped lump on the bed, swathed so deeply in the maroon duvets that only bits of his hair peek out. “Is that—? Are you _sick_?”

“Some asshole got me sick,” Kiyoomi answer, a scoff on his face as he says it. It’s an expression Sakusa knows well—the disgust at being sick, the detestation of being bound to bed for however long it takes him to recover—he understands all those feelings, understands them all too well. “Being a pro-volleyball player means you’ll have to meet more people, and not everyone has decent hygiene.”

Sakusa crosses his arms and frowns, glaring at the ground. Spitefully, Sakusa thinks it might be Miya Atsumu’s fault—an unhygienic asshole like him is sure to drag germs with him wherever he goes. After all, it would make sense for misfortune to befall Sakusa if he was dating Miya Atsumu.

Every bad thing begins and ends with Miya, and Sakusa just doesn’t understand any of this.

“Kiyoomi,” Kiyoomi starts, somehow sensing the thoughts running through Sakusa’s head. “Loving Atsumu may seem like something you don’t think you can understand; but to _me_ , nothing has made _more_ sense than this. Not even volleyball.”

Sakusa grimaces at the mention of the name, spoken with so much fondness, so much love, that he wonders how it’s even possible. How can his future counterpart love Miya Atsumu as much as he does, without feeling like he’s going to combust, like he’s going to be consumed by it?

“Then, where is he?” Sakusa bites out, looking around the room filled with so much of Miya Atsumu that he really wants to pull his hair out. That volleyball jersey with the word ‘Miya’ on it, that stupid laptop with the fox stickers—it’s like they’re all mocking him, teasing him with something he knows he can never want, will never have. “You’re sick and he’s not here, is he?”

Kiyoomi sighs and rubs at his temples, “Kiyoomi, why are you so against the idea that you might actually _feel_ something for Atsumu?”

“I don’t feel _anything_ for him!” Sakusa spits out, arms crossed defensively and looking away from his future counterpart who seems to know just a little too much. “Miya Atsumu is an asshole—he doesn’t love anyone except himself.”

Kiyoomi shakes his head, gently, a barely perceptible movement, but Sakusa catches it all the same. “That’s not true, Kiyoomi,” he says, a little glint in his eyes that makes Sakusa rethink, just a little, of how much Miya might mean to his future self. “Atsumu loves—fervently, wholly, without ever asking for anything in return—he loves us, Kiyoomi, he _does_.”

It’s during times like this when the difference, the discrepancy, between the current Sakusa and the Kiyoomi of the future, feels like a gigantic weight crushing down on Sakusa. It feels like they’re both completely different entities, despite being almost the same person, and Sakusa never really knows just how to act with that information, never knows what to do or what to say.

He wants to tell Kiyoomi that Miya doesn’t love him—the Sakusa of the past, the Sakusa who barely even _speaks_ to him off the court—but the words just can’t seem to leave his lips. He wonders if this is a side effect of being in Kiyoomi’s memory—it makes him want to believe that love is possible for someone like him, for someone who only speaks with words as sharp as knives, with skin that burns when it touches someone else’s.

_You deserve to be loved, Kiyoomi_ , his heart tells him, comforts him, tells him like it actually believes the words.

_But, do you really think you deserve it?_ His head then asks, always, after his heart, with words that cut as deep as the words Sakusa speaks to others.

And, as always, he listens to his head, because listening to your heart only leads to heartbreak.

“Kiyoomi—”

“ _No_ ,” Sakusa cuts his future counterpart off, shaking his head to get rid of the hope building in his heart. “I don’t know how you assumed Miya loves you, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that.”

Kiyoomi heaves in a deep breath and nods, “Fine,” he relents. “If that’s what you believe, then I’ll _have_ him prove you wrong.”

Sakusa furrows his eyebrows in confusion, jolting up when he hears the door suddenly click open and sees light spilling into the dim bedroom.

“Omi?” a voice calls out, just a whisper, but it echoes throughout the room regardless and makes Sakusa turn around to face the reason he’s here in the first place.

“That—?” Sakusa asks, heart thundering in his chest so erratically that he wants to claw it out and make it stop, make it calm down, make it—

The lump on the bed shifts slightly until a pair of black eyes peak out. The sick Sakusa Kiyoomi looks up from the bed, eyes squinted and blinking groggily in the direction of the door. “Atsumu?” he asks, voice hoarse and nasal in a way that comes only with sickness.

“Hey,” Miya says, soft and warm, pacing towards the bed in quick, gentle strides and sitting down next to Kiyoomi. “You feeling better, Omi?” he asks, raising a hand to check Kiyoomi’s temperature. It takes a while, but he continues, “Your fever’s finally broken,” he says, almost to himself, in relief, as he brushes Kiyoomi’s bangs off his forehead.

That look, Sakusa thinks, a chill running down his spine as he looks, really _looks_ , at Miya. This isn’t _his_ version of Miya, isn’t the version that teases and taunts him on and off the court to get a reaction out of him— _this_ Miya Atsumu looks _open_ , in love, like he has all of his thorns cut off and walls broken down.

He doesn’t know how to react to seeing a Miya Atsumu that seems so deeply in _love_ with him, doesn’t know how to _feel_ about it.

And, suddenly, he recalls Kiyoomi’s words about how deeply Miya loves them. He still can’t quite attach them to his version of Miya, but if it’s _this_ version, _this_ Miya with the gentle glances and soft touches, Sakusa thinks he can almost believe Kiyoomi when he tells him that Miya loves him, loves _Kiyoomi_.

“I thought you had practice?” the Kiyoomi on the bed croaks out, nuzzling his head into Miya’s hand, seeking the warmth like a moth to flame.

Miya smiles right then and continues running his fingers through Kiyoomi’s hair, “Told Meian that ya were more important than practice,” he says, and Sakusa just knows that he _means_ it, knows that Kiyoomi sits higher on Miya’s list of priorities than _volleyball_. It makes no sense, but Sakusa doesn’t think this Miya makes any sense at all. “I bought some soup for ya if yer hungry—I even made sure to disinfect the entire apartment—including myself—beforehand, knowing yer never gonna leave the room otherwise.”

Sakusa’s eyes widen a bit when Miya tells his sick future self that he’d _disinfected the entire apartment_. It doesn’t seem like something Miya would do, and it only serves as an argument to convince himself that this Miya Atsumu isn’t the same one that he knows in real life.

“It actually took a while, you know,” Kiyoomi, the one standing next to Sakusa, says, looking fondly down at the couple, at Miya Atsumu like he’s the entire universe wrapped into the body of an asshole. “Atsumu wasn’t exactly the poster child for good hygiene—but he put in the effort to do it for us, just like how I put in the effort to get used to him touching me,” he says, nudging his head in the direction of himself and Miya.

Sakusa pulls his lips into a thin line and decides to let the statement go. His future relationship isn’t something he should have an input in—whatever it is that his future counterpart sees in Miya is entirely up to him.

When he turns his attention back to the couple, he sees Miya lean in and press a gentle kiss onto the two moles above Kiyoomi’s eyebrow. “Get some rest, ‘kay, Omi-Omi?” Miya says, gentle and coaxing, voice so soft that it’s barely audible, yet Sakusa somehow hears every word, can see every single consonant and vowel roll off Miya’s tongue. “I’ll be here when you wake up, always.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Kiyoomi finally says when the couple has quieted down, and he’s turning towards Sakusa with a smile. “We believe that all things end at some point and we should just do our parts well so we’ll have no regrets when it ends.”

_But_ — _?_ His heart asks in anticipation, in expectation, for the words that are to come.

“ _But_ ,” Kiyoomi continues, turning to look at Miya with a fondness in his eyes that Sakusa never knew himself capable of having. “I really hope this never ends.”

_I hope this never ends_ , he hears his own voice saying again and again, repeating itself over and over, inside his head, inside his heart.

What would it be like, Sakusa wonders, subconsciously, hopefully, if this were to be his future? Would he be happy? Would he be as loved? Would he be like the Kiyoomi standing before him? Looking so fond, so content?

_You would be_ , he thinks he hears his heart answer in a quiet, gentle hum, and he really wants so badly to believe it.

* * *

The memory fades away like sand in an hourglass, and Sakusa’s back to staring up the cracked ceiling, back to feeling the warmth on his skin, back to the void of nothingness.

Sakusa sighs as he pushes himself back into sitting position, feeling like nothing has really changed even after his journey through Kiyoomi’s memory. He massages the back of his neck and looks around the empty space, eyes landing on the volleyball net, on the volleyball court, that he’s certain hadn’t been there earlier.

_I wonder how much conflict there is in your heart for you to see so little of your own dreamscape_ , Sakusa hears the word repeating itself in his head. What does it mean, then, Sakusa muses, if he’s now able to see the court in all its entirety?

“It must mean that you’ve come to accept a certain part of yourself,” a deep voice rumbles the answer, the sound echoing throughout the hollow space. The voice sounds deeper than what Sakusa’s used to, more mature, yet nonetheless very much Sakusa Kiyoomi.

Sakusa turns towards the voice, eyebrows furrowed when he realizes that the Kiyoomi sitting across from him isn’t the same Kiyoomi as before.

This Kiyoomi, Sakusa finds, is older and more mature. He doesn’t smile, even when faced with his younger self, and there isn’t any spark in his eyes that Sakusa had seen in the previous version of himself. It’s almost like—

_Almost like he doesn’t have a Miya Atsumu in his life_ , his heart finishes for him, thundering nervously in his chest, telling him to be prepared, because this version of him, this older, colder version, doesn’t seem as relenting as the previous version.

“What happened to the other Kiyoomi?” Sakusa swallows, looking around the space. “The one I was just with?”

Sakusa doesn’t really want to be alone with his version of Kiyoomi, the one that sits just out of reach from him, the one who seems so different from the last version of himself that everything just suddenly feels completely _wrong_. Sakusa doesn’t really like this version of him, he thinks, because he reminds Sakusa too much of the current him, the one who’s cold and indifferent, who puts up a façade to seem uncaring when all he wants is to be cared for.

“He’s dreaming another dream,” Kiyoomi answers, curt and blunt, very much like Sakusa, but very unlike the 24-year-old Kiyoomi. “He’ll be back, after you’ve met all of us.” He looks around the space, and there’s something in his eyes, something that feels wistful, like this Kiyoomi is looking and reminiscing, but holding himself back from having any of it.

Sakusa has so many questions for Kiyoomi, questions about how he feels like the present Sakusa, how it feels like he hasn’t changed—but he doesn’t know how to ask, doesn’t exactly want to know because he _doesn’t_ like this version of himself, sitting and acting like _him_. So, instead, he just asks something else, pretends he doesn’t care, acts like he can’t guess the reason why Kiyoomi is the way he is. “How many versions of me do I have to meet?”

Kiyoomi levels Sakusa with a piercing look, like he understands what’s going through Sakusa’s brain because, regardless of what his head tells him, he is _him_ , the version of him that Sakusa’s most likely to become. But he doesn’t say anything, keeps his words under lock and key and only says the things he needs to. “A few,” he answers.

The words are followed by silence, and it’s off-putting, not like the comfortable one that follows whenever Sakusa and the previous 24-year-old Kiyoomi stops talking. 

Sakusa shifts uncomfortably and fiddles with his fingers, “You—” he stops, swallows, because he doesn’t actually have anything to say.

“If you don’t know what to say, then don’t say it,” Kiyoomi says, then sighs, rubbing at his temples. “You know, Kiyoomi, the thing about seeing the lives of the different versions of yourself is that you get to see what life you want to lead; and what life you don’t.” He pauses, leveling Sakusa with a narrow-eyed look, “I don’t think you’d want mine.”

Sakusa thinks he understands where this version of himself is coming from—insecurity, self-loathing, a lot of other internalized problems that the current Sakusa doesn’t even know where to begin fixing. He thinks this older version of himself gets it too, and is warning him against hoping for too much.

“We’re all here because of Miya Atsumu, aren’t we?” Sakusa finally asks, because he wants to, because the question has been gnawing at him ever since he’d left the previous memory. After getting a sweet taste of what it’s like to be loved, he wonders what it would feel like to have it suddenly taken away.

Kiyoomi hums in affirmation, “You can put it like that,” he says. “Mostly, I suppose, we’re all just here to help you accept your feelings for him.”

“You had this same dream, too, didn’t you?” Sakusa’s curious about this future version of himself, _too_ curious, perhaps, for his own good, and he thinks Kiyoomi senses it, too, but doesn’t say anything.

“At a different time, in a different place,” Kiyoomi answers with a languid shrug. He purses his lips in thought, before continuing, “You get this dream when you really need it, when you’re ready to accept it. I think I got it a bit too late.”

And, Sakusa wonders, what can you say in reply to something like that?

He doesn’t think he’s ready to accept anything—not a relationship with Miya Atsumu, not _anything_ regarding love, because he’s sure it’ll just lead to heartbreak.

_Miya Atsumu_ , his heart sings, _won’t break your heart_ , it says like it’s trying to ingrain the idea deep inside his head. _You’ve seen it, you’ve seen him, he’ll love you, no matter what_.

Yet, Sakusa can’t seem to believe it, can’t understand how Miya comes into play in the grand scheme of his life. He thinks this version of him thinks it, too, thinks that they don’t need love, especially not one that comes in the shape and form of Miya Atsumu.

Kiyoomi sighs, “I’ll show you, Kiyoomi.” He doesn’t stand up, like the other Kiyoomi had done earlier, and instead just holds out his hand. “I know you’re curious about what went wrong in my timeline.”

_Am I curious?_ He ponders, staring at the outstretched hand apprehensively. He isn’t as averse to the idea of being with Miya, but he doesn’t know what kind of future he’ll see if he goes.

_Don’t you want to know?_ His head asks, wickedly, malevolently, pushing him into the corner and laughing about it afterwards. _You said you were happy, even without Miya, even without love—aren’t you curious, Kiyoomi? Aren’t you curious to see whether or not you’re_ really _happy?_

Swallowing down the bitterness in his mouth, Sakusa reaches out and takes Kiyoomi’s hand, and just like before, Sakusa feels himself getting submerged into cold nothingness.

* * *

_Lights_ , Sakusa grimaces as his vision clears. Bright lights and—is that music? A gentle lull of it that serves only as background music. _Music_ , he thinks, and the clinking of glasses and soft murmurs.

_A banquet_ , his mind tells him. _A division 1 volleyball banquet_. 

Sakusa lets his gaze flit all over the room, looking around at the scene, at the people in the room. He thinks he sees familiar faces, thinks he hears familiar laughter, thinks he can imagine what they’re laughing about; but, in reality, Sakusa doesn’t really know them—can’t possibly be a part of them.

It takes Sakusa a while to find himself, hidden away from the crowd at one of the corner tables. He sees himself fiddling with a glass of champagne, a frown on his face as he watches the crowd, watches a specific blonde person in the midst of the chattering crowd.

“Why are you here?” Sakusa frowns, turning to Kiyoomi. “You obviously don’t like it here—”

He doesn’t really know if Kiyoomi would’ve just upped and left like he would’ve, but he likes to think that Kiyoomi hasn’t really changed that much. They’re not the same person, not really, but Sakusa thinks he knows Kiyoomi, just like how Kiyoomi knows Sakusa.

“I _don’t_ like it here,” Kiyoomi agrees, arms crossed, a frown prominent on his face. “But I like _him_ ,” he adds, nudging his head in Miya’s direction, “And I guess that’s enough to make me stay.”

From the way Kiyoomi had worded his sentence, Sakusa now knows for absolute certain that this version of himself isn’t dating Miya Atsumu; he’s just _desperately_ in love with him.

Then—why? Why is Kiyoomi sitting there like an idiot, waiting, hoping, for someone that isn’t even his?

Kiyoomi laughs, an ugly sound that seems to resonate the self-loathing Sakusa has always lived with, “Be _cause_ , Kiyoomi,” he starts, looking at the Kiyoomi taking a sip of his champagne and then at the Miya happily chattering away with the other volleyball players. He looks desperate, like he wants to believe in something, but has already given up hope, “Because regret isn’t something you live with for just one day. You wake up every day and you wonder what would’ve happened if you’d just said yes, what would’ve happened if you’d _just stayed_.”

Sakusa’s eyes widen as he looks at Kiyoomi and then at Miya, and, suddenly, he thinks he understands. He thinks he understands why Kiyoomi doesn’t leave, chooses to stay away from Miya, but close enough to let his eyes linger. This version of him loves deeply, heartachingly, but is too afraid to let his love blossom, and can only stand to watch from afar.

Sakusa watches the Kiyoomi in the memory push himself up, discarding the unfinished flute of champagne and slinks away towards the balcony, somehow managing to not attract any attention.

“Come on,” Kiyoomi says, suddenly sounding weary, like he knows what’s coming, but isn’t ready for it. “I think this might be the part I hate the most,” he tacks on once they reach the balcony and sees Kiyoomi glancing up at the sky, frown etched deeply on his face like he’s thinking of something terrible, of something unchangeable.

“Why?” Sakusa asks, staring intently at the memory version of Kiyoomi and expecting something terrible to happen any second.

Kiyoomi turns his gaze onto the version of him, staring up at the sky, and then towards the door, “Well,” he says, watching as the glass doors of the balcony swing open and a lackadaisical Miya Atsumu walks in. “Because of him.”

The Kiyoomi in the memory jolts up at the intrusion, snapping his head towards the sound, eyes blown wide in shock. It’s obvious that he hadn’t anticipated being barged in on when everyone at the party seemed so preoccupied with themselves.

“Omi—I mean, Sakusa-kun,” Atsumu clears his throat awkwardly, “I, uh, saw ya leaving the banquet and I, uh, just wanted to see if ya were okay.”

Sakusa draws his brows together in confusion and watches as Miya walks closer to where Memory Kiyoomi is standing. He’s seen that look on Miya’s face before, he realizes. He’s seen that look lining every single contour of Miya’s face in the previous memory. It was in his every expression, every touch, every word—this version of Miya Atsumu is in love with Kiyoomi too, is so deeply in love with him that he couldn’t hide it, is so deeply in love with him that it’s hurts Sakusa to look at.

“He loves you,” Sakusa breathes out, overwhelmed. How is it possible for Miya to be in love with him in two consecutive timelines? How—? “He still loves you,” he says again, more to himself, than to Kiyoomi. Miya _loves_ him, in spite of everything he’s done, in spite of who he is and what he stands for.

“No, he doesn’t,” Kiyoomi says resolutely. “You just _think_ he does, but he doesn’t. Not anymore.”

The words ring out and gives Sakusa a sudden sense of déjà vu. He’d said something similar to the previous Kiyoomi, hadn’t he? He hadn’t believed that Miya would actually love them after finding out what a mess they are.

But, this—this is clear proof that he loves them, all of them, and is willing to fight for and love them even after they’ve pushed him away.

“I’m fine, Miya.” Memory Kiyoomi snaps, looking almost longingly at Miya—no, this isn’t Miya, not the Miya _Sakusa_ knows, at least; this is _Atsumu_ , the person willing to wait for Kiyoomi, the person who seems to love Kiyoomi with all his heart, flaws and all.

Atsumu reels back at the sharpness of Kiyoomi’s words, but doesn’t make a move to leave. He looks tired, Sakusa discovers, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well for quite some time. The dark circles underneath his eyes, the way his lips seems naturally pulled down into a frown instead of his usual smirk—this Atsumu seems mature and emotionally drained, different in a way that rubs Sakusa the wrong way, and he’s somewhat curious to know if it has anything to do with Kiyoomi.

“Omi-kun—” Miya starts carefully, like he’s crossing a broken-down bridge and one wrong move would lead to him falling down into a pool of sharks.

“Don’t call me that,” Kiyoomi seethes, darting his eyes away from where Atsumu’s face had fallen. “You know this _thing_ we have is over, Miya, so stop—stop doing _this_ , whatever this is.” Sakusa has never heard so much venom in his own words before, especially not towards someone he cares about, so it alarms him just a bit when he hears the words, so piercing, so sharp, directed at someone he seems to love. 

Atsumu flinches slightly, but manages to straighten his back and narrow his eyes at Kiyoomi. “Is it really over, Omi-kun?” he bites back, words filled with just as much sharpness as Kiyoomi’s had. “If it really was over, if ya really didn’t care, then _why are ya here_?” he asks, his voice cracking at the last part of his sentence. “I’m trying so fucking hard to ignore these feelings, then ya show up and look at me with those fucking eyes of yers and I—” he takes a deep breath, “What’re ya so _afraid_ of, Omi-kun?”

_What are you so afraid of?_

Sakusa closes his eyes. He keeps hearing that sentence, again and again, incessantly replaying itself over and over like a broken record, like a song that just won’t leave his head.

What _is_ he afraid of?

Sometimes, Sakusa feels like he’s drowning, the darkness that surrounds him gripping him and strangling him until he feels nothing but cold water in his chest, in his lungs, and he’s forced to close his eyes until the pain, the fear, goes away. At times like those, he imagines the darkness to be something akin to love, akin to whatever feeling he feels for Atsumu.

It’s scary, he thinks, letting someone have so much power over you. It feels like losing control, like driving a car but you don’t get a say in where to turn, where to go. It feels constraining, restricting, like breathing but being unable to, like a dull throb in your chest that won’t ever go away—it’s _scary_ ; _love_ is scary, and Sakusa thinks this Kiyoomi might understand that, a bit too much, a bit too awfully.

“I’m not afraid of anything!” Memory Kiyoomi screams, arms wrapped tightly around himself as if they could protect him. “I don’t care about you, I don’t feel _anything_ for you, Miya, okay? I don’t care about what happened to us in the past, I don’t care that we slept together and I fucking liked it or whatever—you’re just a good fuck, okay? Nothing, absolutely nothing, is ever going to come out of this, of _us_.”

Sometimes, Sakusa feels like he’s drowning—but he doesn’t think any feeling he’s ever had in the past has ever come as close to that feeling as this does.

Atsumu laughs, a self-depreciating laugh, one that cuts through every single one of Sakusa’s heartstrings and makes him bleed for him, hurt for him. “I guess I should’ve fucking known that the great Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t fucking love anything.” He says it in anguish, with a finality that Sakusa wishes for him to take back, to regret.

But, Sakusa hears nothing of the sort, _sees_ nothing of the sort, even as Atsumu turns around and walks back into the room. The only thing that Sakusa can see radiating off Atsumu that so much as feels like sorrow comes in the form of Atsumu wiping away tears with the cuffs of his sleeves and, even then, the action felt like a goodbye, like a conclusion of his and Kiyoomi’s story.

Memory Kiyoomi breathes in heavily, and for once in Sakusa’s short life, he sees himself cry. It’s quiet, nothing more than the trembling of his body, but the tears that fall down his pale cheeks feel like a symbol of regret, of self-destroyed hope.

“Why would you do that?” Sakusa turns to the other Kiyoomi in the room, to the one who can hear him, who can actually hold a conversation with him, who he can actually be angry at. “Why would you _say_ that to him?” he demands, pointing towards the doors where Atsumu had left.

Kiyoomi looks at Sakusa with cold eyes and, slowly, he lets out a dark chuckle, “Like you wouldn’t have done the same, Kiyoomi,” he says, seethes, like he’s trying to contain any and all anger that’s threatening to explode out of him. “You know Atsumu, you know what type of person he is. He only _thinks_ he likes me because I’m new and interesting—he’s going to get bored; he’s going to _leave_ when he finds out what a fucking mess I am. I’m just preventing the inevitable heartbreak.”

The words sound similar to something Sakusa had once said. He might’ve believed them, too, back then; yet, somehow, he finds himself unable to believe them now. He’s seen how happy both he and Atsumu were in the previous memory, in the previous timeline, and he thinks he might’ve been just as happy in this timeline, if he’d given Atsumu and himself a chance.

“But I’ve _seen_ how much he can love you,” Sakusa argues, recalling the sick version of him and how Atsumu had taken care of him. “He’ll love you no matter your problems—Atsumu doesn’t _care_ , he just wants _you_ , wants us. You don’t even have to do anything; you just have to _be there_ and he’ll—he’ll just love you.”

Kiyoomi scoffs, “Love me?” he laughs, sounding disbelieving. “I can’t even love myself, Kiyoomi—how am I expected to love him and have him love me in return?”

Sakusa looks at himself, the older version of him, someone who has experienced things the sixteen-year-old him has yet to experience, who’s seen things the sixteen-year-old him has yet to see, and he suddenly hopes he won’t have to experience them, hopes he won’t have to experience this version of the future.

* * *

Leaving that memory feels like waking up from a nightmare, one that leaves you drenched in cold sweat and unwilling to shut your eyes again in fear that you’d wake up where you had just left.

Sakusa peels open his eyes and wills the thundering in his chest to stop, to let him catch his breath. His breathing is unsteady, harsh like he’d just run a marathon or played a five-set match. He thinks he can still hear Atsumu’s words replaying in his head, loud enough that he feels engulfed in the sharpness of his words and the acridity of his hurt.

_I guess I should’ve fucking known that the great Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t fucking love anything._

Sakusa wants to laugh at how ironically funny that entire sentence is, how he doesn’t want to love, doesn’t want to care, but can feel the unwanted feeling of something akin to love bubbling in his chest every time he so much as _thinks_ about Atsumu. He doesn’t think he loves Atsumu—not yet—but he’s getting there, and he thinks that’s the scariest part of it all.

These memories are making him want things, making him crave things he doesn’t think he should crave. They make him wonder what it’s like to have Atsumu’s fingers run through his hair, what it’s like to have his lips touch the two beauty marks above his eyebrow. It makes him yearn and want and crave, and he doesn’t even know if it’s really _him_ wanting those things or if it’s just another twisted joke this dream is playing on him. 

_I guess I should’ve fucking known that the great Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t fucking love anything._

_Shut up_ , Sakusa tells his mind, wills it to stay silent, just for once, because he’s wants to—really _wants to_ —to listen to his heart.

_But are you ready to accept what it has to say?_ His mind whispers, its words coated with the same darkness he’s so used to.

_You are_ , his heart tells him, sure and understanding, warm like he’s never remembered it ever being.

Slowly, he realizes, his heart has stopped sounding like a monster; whereas his head, he discovers, has actually been the monster all along.

Sakusa sighs and pushes himself off the ground, looking around his dreamscape to see if anything has changed. He doesn’t really believe that he’s come to accept more of himself through visits into his future counterparts’ memories, but he does feel lighter, less weighted down by the haunting thoughts he hears day and night.

The entire volleyball court has appeared by now, and even the audience seats have shown up in full, encircling the court he’s sitting in. It reminds him of something, of _somewhere_ , a place from a memory maybe.

_Remember it, Kiyoomi_ , his heart says again, beating excitedly in his chest. _You’re almost there_.

Sakusa lifts his head to look up at the ceiling. The cracks seemed to have decreased slightly, like someone had painted over the old ones but hadn’t done a good enough job. Ever since his arrival here, he’s likened the cracked ceiling to the wounds he’d inflicted on himself. He isn’t quite sure how accurate that metaphor is, but it seems like the only explanation he can conjure up.

He wonders flittingly what would happen to the ceiling if he never heals.

“Maybe you won’t heal with this dream, but there’s still plenty of time for you to heal in the future,” someone says, cutting through his thoughts.

Sakusa smiles a little at the interruption, somehow having gotten used to it after the second time. He lowers his gaze and turns towards the sound, meeting eyes with—

“ _Dad_?” Sakusa manages to splutter out in surprise. Then, narrowing his eyes and focusing more clearly, he realizes that this man—while looking eerily identical to his father—isn’t _actually_ his father. “You’re _me_?”

The man, sensing that Sakusa has seemed to come to the realization, smiles, “Hello, Kiyoomi,” he greets. “Yes, I’m you,” he answers slowly, the kind smile on his face never wavering. “Though, I’m surprised you’d mistaken me for dad.”

Sakusa blinks at this version of himself, older, kinder, wiser, but still essentially a version of him. He feels happier, Sakusa realizes, content and relaxed, like he’s gotten everything he wants in life, like he’s honestly, unquestionably _happy_.

“Yes, I suppose love makes you happy,” Kiyoomi agrees with a slow, languid shrug.

It feels weird seeing this version of himself, Sakusa thinks, looking so relaxed and comfortable in his skin.

“You look like you have a lot of questions,” Kiyoomi comments in amusement. “You can ask them, if you want,” he insists, with the sort of kindness Sakusa isn’t used to hearing coming from his own mouth.

Sakusa does have a lot of questions, but he doesn’t really know where or how to start asking them. He has no doubts that this version of himself is as patient as they come, but he feels weirdly uncomfortable when he thinks about having to ask his future self about his life.

“You—” Sakusa clears his throat awkwardly, “Are you the last version of me I have to meet?” he asks, wincing when the question comes out more awkward than he’d expected it to.

Kiyoomi laughs, a short one that conveys the amusement he feels, “I’m afraid not,” he answers, pulling his lips together to control his laughter. “There’s still one other version of you left.” Then, doing something completely out of the ordinary for this version of Kiyoomi, he frowns, “Though, I have to warn you,” he starts, “that my version of the future and _his_ will be at complete odds with each other.”

Sakusa frowns, “What does that mean?” he asks, but only gets a shrug in reply. He really wants to know what Kiyoomi’s trying to say, but he also knows that if he doesn’t want to do or say something, no amount of force is going to change that. “Are you going to show me your future now?”

Thinking about the prospect of delving into another memory sounds exciting, all of a sudden, and Sakusa doesn’t particularly know why. He has a feeling that this Kiyoomi has a nice life, one that’s mellowed him down and carefully smoothed out the sharp edges of his heart.

“I will,” Kiyoomi tells him, a fail attempt at trying to quell his excitement. “But before we do, may I ask what you’ve learned from this dream?”

The question sounds like something adults ask children after they’ve gotten into trouble. It’s not condescending, isn’t supposed to be, but there’s always been an underlying curiosity and threat to it that never sat right with Sakusa. It’s like they only want to hear the things that _they_ want, and any other answer would just be classified as failure on your part.

“Well, I know that I’m dreaming this because of Miya Atsumu,” Sakusa starts, and an encouraging nod from Kiyoomi makes him continue. “I know that this dream is here to help me accept my feelings for him,” he continues, slowly, because he doesn’t really know what he’s learned but is still trying to form a good conclusion based on the things he _does_ know. “I think Atsumu loves us, in every single timeline, and I think—I think we love him, too.”

Kiyoomi lets out a hum. Sakusa doesn’t know what Kiyoomi thinks about his answer, but it seems like Kiyoomi has gotten his own conclusion from the answer. “But you don’t love him, do you?” he prompts, sounding kind.

“No,” Sakusa blurts out before really thinking about the answer. “I don’t think so,” he tacks on, wincing at how forced it sounds.

“I’m messing with you, Kiyoomi,” Kiyoomi laughs, shaking his head. “It’s okay if you don’t know yet—that’s the whole reason you’re here.”

Sakusa lets his shoulder sag and turns to glare at the older Kiyoomi for the really unfunny joke he’d played. His older counterpart might be happy, but he thinks he’d just turned more immature as well.

_Maybe it’s because he’s happy that he’s immature_ , his heart insists.

Sakusa swallows thickly, wondering, imagining, what it’s like to be so happy that your mental age decreases, to be so happy that nothing else seems to matter.

“Show me,” Sakusa cuts through the silence, reaching his hand out. “I want to see—your future.”

This is the first time Sakusa is desperate to know being truly happy is like. He’s always believed that he’s happy, that getting to play volleyball, getting to be with his family, is what’s considered to be happiness. He’s never had the option of not believing it, never had the option of having something better, something happier, waiting for him.

He wants to know, wants to see, what Kiyoomi’s happiness is like, what it _feels_ like.

Kiyoomi seems to understand, because he just nods and smiles, almost comfortingly, “Alright,” he says, reaching out and clasping onto Sakusa’s hand.

* * *

It always feels weird going into a memory, like you wake up and everything’s suddenly different, like you can feel the warmth of the room but can’t actually touch anything in it.

The first thing Sakusa sees going into the memory is a cozy living room. The entire space is littered with toys, messy in a way that reminds Sakusa of the organized chaos he absolutely hates. He sees playmats and babyproofed _everything_. It makes Sakusa shudder just a bit at the implication that, in this timeline, he might actually have _kids_.

A comforting hand lands on his shoulder, making him stiffen as Kiyoomi gives him a few pats to calm him down. “Kids aren’t that scary, Kiyoomi,” he says, a bemused smile on his face. “At least, _my_ kids aren’t.”

Sakusa tensed, his mouth gaping open as he stared, terrified, at Kiyoomi. Growing up, he had often been the youngest in his family. Even as his older siblings had gotten married and had kids of their own, Sakusa had never needed to interact with anyone younger than he was for more than absolutely needed—he never had to babysit, never had to _speak_ to them. Kids, in all his understanding, are messy and dirty, a complete mess of a human being if he’d ever seen one.

He finds it hard to believe that his older self would even have kids, would even _want_ kids—what with him not wanting any at the moment, what with them being dirty little _monsters_. But, then again, he imagines Kiyoomi being more open to the idea, more accepting, because he breathes and act like an entirely different brand of Sakusa Kiyoomi.

“We’re essentially the same, Kiyoomi,” Kiyoomi laughs. “Just because I’ve changed doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being Sakusa Kiyoomi.”

_You’re still you_ , Sakusa can hear his heart saying, just like it did before. Except, this time, Sakusa wants to believe it. He wants to believe that he can be happy, be content, _be_ this version of himself.

But he doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want to admit it, because he thinks he understands the amount of pain a person has to go through to change so much. So, he does what he does best, and ignores the entire thing until he can’t anymore. “Where are you right now?” he asks, turning to Kiyoomi who just smiles and leads him into the kitchen.

The kitchen is huge, bigger than what’s expected of a Japanese kitchen, and cleaner than the mess that’s the living room. Sakusa doesn’t really know what job Kiyoomi has, and he can only hope that it isn’t anything related to the mafia because he suspects that _no one_ should be able to afford a kitchen—a house—like this one and not be missing an arm and leg.

“Atsumu and I were professional volleyball players,” Kiyoomi says, “so I think it’s pretty natural that we’d be able to afford this house.” He looks amused, a default expression he seems to have on whenever he’s looking at Sakusa.

In the kitchen, standing side-by-side, is an older Kiyoomi with an older Atsumu. There’s music playing softly in the background and there’s a warm feeling radiating from the space, like seeing the two of them together is enough for everything to suddenly feel warmer, cozier.

“Ah, Omi-kun, it’s our favourite song!” Atsumu exclaims as the first song ends and another begins. “We have to dance to this one!” he says, gently prying the knife out of Memory Kiyoomi’s hands and twirling him around in the kitchen.

Sakusa winces at the action, but it’s clear that the memory version of him has long since gotten used to Atsumu’s atrocious behavior.

“Atsumu, I swear if you get any louder, the kids will wake up,” Memory Kiyoomi says, though it’s clear he doesn’t really mind because he’s smiling and going along with Atsumu’s antics.

Atsumu barks out a laugh and twirls both of them around, “It’s almost time to wake Yume-chan up anyway,” he says, then lowering his voice to sing along to the music playing in the background. “ _And I need you to know that we’re fallin’ so fast_ ,” he sings, swaying both of them around the kitchen. “ _We’re fallin’ like the stars, we’re fallin’ in love_ ,” he sings, smiling a little.

“You’re absolutely disgusting, Miya,” Memory Kiyoomi laughs, smiling so wide that Sakusa’s afraid his face would split in half.

Atsumu gasps, looking affronted, “It’s _Sakusa_ now, _Miya_ ,” he says, grinning cockily as Kiyoomi lets out another laugh.

Sakusa winces at the blatant display of affection from the couple and turns his head away, an empty feeling bubbling inside his chest that he can’t explain. This version of the future, this incredibly _sappy_ version of the future—it’s surprisingly _nice_.

“Dad? Papa?” a small voice echoes through the kitchen, making the two dancing adults stop what they’re doing to turn towards the newcomer in the room.

The little girl looks to be about six or seven, with her arms crossed and a disapproving frown on her face that somehow perfectly mirrors the one Sakusa has been prone to wear.

Kiyoomi sighs fondly from beside Sakusa, “That’s Yumeka,” he says, nodding his head at the girl. “She’s the oldest child.”

“Oh, _oops_ , did we wake you, Yume-chan?” Atsumu asks, pulling away from Kiyoomi to face his daughter. He has a smirk on his face that shows how unapologetic he is, one that Yumeka doesn’t seem too happy about because she reaches out her hands and presses her dad’s cheeks together and laughs.

“Oh, _oops_ , did I squeeze you too hard, dad?” she laughs, patting her dad’s cheek twice before letting go. “You were so loud that you woke up Haru-chan too!” she sighs, shaking her head like a mother lecturing her two rowdy kids. “It’s a good thing he doesn’t like to _cry_.”

Atsumu rubs his cheeks and frowns at his daughter, “You’re a monster,” he says, reaching out and picking his daughter off the ground. “Off to Haru-chan we go!” he exclaims, taking one step forward before turning back towards Kiyoomi. “After a farewell kiss, of course,” he says, cheekily, leaning in to peck Kiyoomi’s lips before dashing off with Yumeka in his arms.

Memory Kiyoomi sighs and shakes his head fondly at the squeals that can be heard even from the kitchen.

Sakusa watches the scene in front of him and feels a small smile slipping onto his lips. “You two look so happy together,” he comments, to himself, and to the only other person in the room who can hear him.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi agrees easily. “But, honestly, it hasn’t been easy getting to where we are.” He turns to Sakusa with a fond smile on his lips, “It was hard, but really worth it.”

Sakusa darts his eyes away from the Kiyoomi next to him onto the other Kiyoomi in the room, “You knew it was going to be difficult, didn’t you?” he questions, earning a nod from Kiyoomi. Sakusa frowns, “Then why did you start it? Wouldn’t it have been less painful to not start it at all?”

Kiyoomi hums, sounding nostalgic, “Frankly,” he starts, a gentle smile on his face, “I think it would’ve hurt more not starting anything,” he says with a shrug. “Maybe I’m the only who thinks that, but I like being where I am. I like being here, with Atsumu, with our little family. It was hard getting here, sure, but it’s nice being here. It’s so nice that I wouldn’t—that I _couldn’t_ —think about a life where I had never given Atsumu a chance.”

This version of the future, Sakusa realizes with a startling jolt, is the complete opposite of the previous one. In this future, Kiyoomi had given Atsumu a chance, had given them both a chance, and he’s reaping the rewards of it. This timeline, this future, this life, feels like the complete antithesis of the previous one, and Sakusa doesn’t really know how to feel about it.

_Is this what it would be like if he lets Atsumu love him?_

On cue, Atsumu comes stumbling back into the kitchen, a little boy in his arms while their daughter swaggers in beside her dad. “And we’re back!” he announces, placing the little boy into his high chair before sitting down into his own chair.

“That’s Haruto,” Kiyoomi tells Sakusa, nudging his head at the little boy sitting quietly in his highchair. “Atsumu likes to say he acts like me a little too much.”

Sakusa smiles at the little boy, watching how he seems to be judging his dad and sister, eyebrows scrunched together and lips pulled into a pout. Somehow, he thinks he can see where Atsumu’s coming from.

“Papa, sit next to me!” the girl exclaims—practically yells with how loud her voice is, really—and pats the empty seat next to her.

“Nu-uh,” Atsumu protests, gripping onto Memory Kiyoomi’s wrist when he’s about to do as he’s told. “Your papa is married to _me_ , so he should be sitting next to _me_.”

The bickering doesn’t seem to stop even as Memory Kiyoomi pulls his hand away and takes a seat next to his son, watching fondly as the father-daughter duo keeps bickering, seemingly unaware that he’d already sat down.

“Guess we’re the only normal ones in this household, aren’t we, Haru-chan?” Kiyoomi coos, smiling widely when his son giggles.

Sakusa watches everything unfold on the sidelines, watches the bickering between Atsumu and their daughter, watches the family enjoy a nice breakfast together. He looks at the entire room, at the people in it, and tries to will it to stay in his memory, in his heart, forever.

_I want this_ , he says, to himself, to his heart, to whatever God up there that’s listening, looking longingly at the scene and knowing that he can’t stay. _I really, really want this_.

* * *

The thing about sweet dreams are that they never stay—they start fast and end faster, like a good movie or a good song that ends too soon and you’re left gripping onto scenes of it that only replays in your memory.

That memory, the one Sakusa had just left—it’s something that he yearns for, that he craves and wants with every fiber of his being. It’s an emotion he’s never let himself feel, never let himself have the pleasure of embracing, and he feels so, so empty with the knowledge that he might not be able to have it yet.

Atsumu loves him, he knows now, no matter who he is or what he’s done. He’ll love and love even when Sakusa only gives him scraps. And, really, he wants to feel that love, wants to feel it scorching his skin and tearing his heart to pieces.

_It’s hard_ , the latest version of Kiyoomi had told him, _but really worth it_.

_I want it_ , his heart sings. _I want it, I want it, I want it_ —

“I did, too,” another voice enters into the conversation, making Sakusa turn towards it immediately, suddenly excited at the idea of seeing another memory from another version of himself.

He’d seen good things and bad things, but he’s convinced now, more than ever, that Atsumu would love him, in any universe, in any timeline, that they would end up together, no matter the odds, and it’s with that knowledge that he’s happy, that he’s anxious to see another timeline of how they fall in love, of how they end up together.

The newest version of Sakusa is older, much, much older than all of the previous ones, with grey hair and wrinkles so prominent that Sakusa assumes him to be at least sixty years old. He’s sitting a bit away from Sakusa, arms folded on his leg and his lips pulled into a frown.

There’s an aura surrounding him that reminds Sakusa, inadvertently, of the second version of himself. It isn’t as warm of an aura as the previous Kiyoomi, and there’s an underlying coldness to him that makes Sakusa tense up.

“Hello, Kiyoomi,” the oldest version of him says. “You seem a bit too excited at the prospect of meeting me.”

Sakusa swallows thickly, observing this stern version of himself with watchful eyes. _Perhaps_ , he thinks, Atsumu has died in this Kiyoomi’s timeline, and he’s turned cold as a coping mechanism.

Kiyoomi laughs, a weary laugh that sounds cold when it leaves his lips, “I suppose he might as well be, to me,” he answers, reaching out a weathered hand towards Sakusa. “I’m not one for pretenses, so I might as well just show you.”

Sakusa, with his heart racing, takes the hand. He still believes, firmly, that this version of himself is with Atsumu. He’s seen three different timelines, and the one constant thing is that Atsumu loves him in every single one—he doesn’t doubt that this one would be any different.

“Sometimes, Kiyoomi, reality likes to pull the rug out from under you,” Kiyoomi tells him, warns him.

It’s the last thing he hears as his vision goes dark.

* * *

It feels different entering a memory this time around. Sakusa doesn’t really feel the disorientating sensation that comes with entering a memory and, instead, feels something resembling dread.

“Where are we?” he asks, immediately. He’s sitting on a pew, and Sakusa can see Atsumu standing at the altar, tall and regal in a perfectly pressed white suit. Somehow, and he doesn’t know why, he has a forbidding feeling that this isn’t his and Atsumu’s wedding. “Where are we?” he almost demands for the answer, spinning around towards Kiyoomi, desperate for him to tell him that Atsumu’s actually getting married to him, that the worry sitting in the pit of his stomach is just nonsense.

Kiyoomi sighs and leans into the seat next to Sakusa. “You already know, don’t you, Kiyoomi?” he asks, looking more tired and old than ever. The wrinkles by his eyes deepen as he turns towards Sakusa, “This is my worst nightmare— _our_ worst nightmare.” He nudges his head in the direction of Atsumu, “He’s getting married, Kiyoomi, but not to us, not to you.”

Sakusa sucks in a breath, feeling his heart drop into the pit of his stomach. _No_ , he thinks, shaking his head in disbelief. This isn’t possible. Atsumu should love him— _has_ to love him—in every timeline. That’s what he’s been shown, what he was led to believe—

“Do you really think,” Kiyoomi starts, cutting through the train of thoughts running through Sakusa’s head, “that love without any effort would lead to anything?” he asks.

“He _loves_ us,” Sakusa reasons, protests, _says_ , because it’s what he believes, what he truly, wholeheartedly believes. “He _has_ to love us in your timeline too. It doesn’t make sense—”

“Just watch, Kiyoomi, and tell me that he still loves us,” Kiyoomi says, closing his eyes as the wedding march starts to play. He seems to have blocked out the entire thing, eyes shut so tight that Sakusa can barely believe what he’s hearing, what he’s seeing.

Then, the doors of the church open, and Sakusa sees, he really _sees_ , how wide Atsumu’s smile turns, how his eyes light up at the person standing at the end of the aisle.

And, that look isn’t for him, not in this memory, not in this lifetime—that look that he’s seen on Atsumu’s face in all the previous memories, the soft gazes, the fond smiles, all of them that were once directed at him—in this memory, they’re all for someone else.

“W-Who is he?” Sakusa asks, feeling his heart break with every step the orange-haired individual takes towards Atsumu. He feels tears prickle in his eyes, a feeling he’s never once felt before today. He wants to look away, wants to turn his entire attention away—but like every bad thing that happens in life, you just won’t be able to tear your eyes away from it, from the sight of your own heart breaking.

“Hinata Shouyou,” Kiyoomi says. He has his eyes opened now, a faraway look in his eyes as he watches the scene in front of him, of a happy couple saying their vows. “From Karasuno,” he tacks on, knowing that Sakusa doesn’t know him yet, this orange-haired, bubbly boy that had somehow managed to steal Atsumu’s heart.

“I want to leave,” Sakusa blurts out. “I don’t want to see this anymore,” he adds, desperately, willing for this scene in front of him to just dissolve, to disappear, to let him return to that bland dreamscape.

“Oh, Kiyoomi,” the older Kiyoomi sighs, shaking his head. “We’ve always prided ourselves on our logic—you should’ve known that there was a chance, no matter how miniscule, that you won’t end up with Atsumu.”

“No,” Sakusa argues, shaking his own head in disbelief. He wants to laugh at how pathetic this timeline is, how stupid this memory is. “In all of the memories I’ve seen, there was always a chance of me ending up with Atsumu. He—there’s no way you don’t end up with him. This isn’t it, is it? You end up with him, right? In the future? After this—”

Kiyoomi smiles, a sad one, and that’s all he really needs to do for Sakusa to get it. They don’t end up together, not now, in this memory, or in the future of this Kiyoomi’s timeline.

“How—?” he asks, but the words fail him after, making him shut his eyes to will the tears away. He doesn’t want to cry, but the tears keep appearing, pricking at his eyes and begging to fall.

“You know what I’ve learned in my sixty years of life?” Kiyoomi asks, not even waiting for any affirmation from Sakusa before continuing. “You can’t stop the things that’ll happen—they’ll always happen no matter what—but you _can_ change how you react to those things. I love Atsumu, very much so, yet the fear of never being good enough for him was what ultimately drove him away from me. I guess it’s how we deal with that fear that changes things.”

Sakusa scrunches his eyebrows together, “But I thought—”

“That he’d love us regardless of everything?” Kiyoomi asks, eyebrows raised in amusement. “I suppose I thought so too. And look where we are.”

Sakusa lowers his gaze away from Kiyoomi, and towards the newly wedded couple. “How much longer until I can leave this memory?” he asks, turning away when he sees them kiss. It feels wrong to see Atsumu kissing someone who isn’t him, and he hates that feeling, hates feeling like _this_.

The memory in front of them shimmers, all of a sudden, a new silver of memory opens up in front of them.

Kiyoomi sighs next to Sakusa as the scene in front of them morphs from the church into a wedding reception, no doubt a continuation of the memory Sakusa had been so keen to leave.

“This wasn’t what I meant when I said I wanted to leave,” Sakusa grumbles under his breath. He sees the memory version of himself now, sitting at a table and watching the wedded couple slow-dancing on the dance floor.

“I don’t believe you get a say in when you get to leave,” Kiyoomi tells him, watching the couple just like the younger, memory version of him is doing. “It’s weird, you know, how it doesn’t feel as painful as it did when it was happening right before my eyes.”

Sakusa watches the dancing couple, so happy, so elated, that he kind of understands what Kiyoomi is trying to say. This is the first time he’s watching this scene, but it feels like having his heart ripped out of his chest and stepped on in the worst way possible.

The silence between him and Kiyoomi somehow calms him, but at the same time, puts everything into hyper focus. It makes him focus on every single detail in this memory—the way Atsumu’s smiling, the way his fingers curl themselves around Hinata Shouyou’s waist as they spin around to the tune of the song—

Sakusa’s eyes widen when the familiar tune floats its way into his ears. How ironic it is that the song Atsumu and Hinata dances to is the same one he’d heard in the previous memory, when Atsumu and himself were dancing in their kitchen. How ironic it is, Sakusa thinks with a scoff, that their relationship would end like this in this timeline.

“I chose this song for him,” Kiyoomi suddenly tells him. “I’d gotten the dream, a week before his wedding, and I’d heard this song.” He smiles, like he’s thinking of a memory that isn’t his, of a faraway future that he never got to have. “It seems fitting, I think, to give him away, to let him go, to a song that meant so much to us, to a song that we loved, in a life where we ended up together.”

Sakusa blinks his tears away, for the umpteenth time, and turns his attention away from the dancing couple, away from the awed gazes of the crowd. “Why did he accept it?” he asks, because, although he doesn’t know this Atsumu, he likes to think that he knows the one in his timeline, the one who doesn’t do what he doesn’t like.

Kiyoomi gives a short laugh, “I begged Osamu put it on the wedding playlist. Atsumu wouldn’t have accepted anything from me, but I knew that Osamu would do this, if only to spite me for hurting his brother,” he answers. “Funnily enough, though, this was the one song Atsumu specifically told Osamu to never put on the playlist.”

Sakusa straightens his back and narrows his eyes at Atsumu, calculatingly, incredulously, like there’s a missing puzzle piece here somewhere that he needs to find. He wouldn’t have thought that Atsumu, of all people, would listen to James Arthur, of all singers. This song isn’t that popular in Japan, so unless Atsumu had heard it from somewhere, it was rare for him to—

_Unless_ , Sakusa thinks with a jolt, eyeing Atsumu like he’s trying to figure something out. Unless Atsumu had the same dream as he did.

“I thought the same thing,” Kiyoomi muses, “But I guess we won’t ever really know.”

Sakusa blinks as Atsumu smiles down at Hinata Shouyou, a look in his eyes that’s seared itself into Sakusa’s brain, a look he’s seen on countless versions of Atsumu.

He leans down, meeting Hinata Shouyou in the middle, and Sakusa feels his heart stop in his chest.

_This isn’t how it’s supposed to be_ , he hears his heart scream, yell, desperately, in so much pain.

_He’s supposed to be with_ me, Sakusa thinks, desperately, as the entire scene, the entire wedding, dissolves in front of his eyes.

* * *

“Do you regret it?” Sakusa hears himself ask, somewhere in between the last memory and before a new one begins. He doesn’t know why he’s still there, but he thinks there might a lesson somewhere, a moral to the story that he has yet to find.

“Of course,” Kiyoomi answers, truthfully. Sakusa thinks Kiyoomi knows why they’re still there, away from the memory of the wedding, but still very much trapped in _a_ memory. “But, you know, regret isn’t always clear-cut.” He smiles, a sorrowful one, like a man who has seen too much, loved too much, and had gotten too little in return. “I think you deserve to see one more thing, Kiyoomi, about my relationship with Atsumu. I think this is something we both need to see.”

The wedding dissolves away, the laughter, the music, all of them gone in a split second. This time, they’re in a garden behind the church Sakusa had only seen the inside of. It’s beautiful, the garden, but it also feels empty and cold, silent and uninviting.

“I’m sorry to call you out like this, Omi-kun.” The Atsumu of the previous memory stands right there, in front of Kiyoomi, wearing his perfectly pressed wedding suit and looking perfectly serene even as he puffs out the smoke of the cigarette he’s smoking. He looks absolutely too serene for someone who’s going to break Kiyoomi’s heart again and again, until there’s nothing left but fragments unable to be pieced together again.

“What do you want, Miya?” the Kiyoomi of this memory asks, and the tone he uses feels like a callback to the second memory Sakusa had seen—the guarded version of him, the one who’s so afraid of loving that he never lets himself do it.

Atsumu puts out the cigarette and chuckles, fond and soft, “Ya always did that, Omi-kun, when feelings get the best of ya and ya don’t know what to do with it.” He smiles, then, like all the years of heartbreak had never happened between them and they had actually been happy in this timeline, in this world.

“Just get it over with, Miya. I’m not in the mood to—”

“Thank you, Omi-kun,” Atsumu says. He looks softer now, and Sakusa wonders what it would’ve been like if this version of him had ended up with Atsumu as well. “I think ya needed to hear this as much as I needed to say it. I don’t regret tellin’ ya that I love you that day years ago, and I don’t think that feeling ever just goes away, but I wanna thank ya for everything anyway.” He looks nostalgic, smiling as he reaches out and gently tucks a strand of hair behind Kiyoomi’s ears. “I love Shou-kun, so much that it kinda kills me a little every time I think of how much. But, sometimes, ya gotta wonder what it would’ve been like if we’d done things a little differently.”

Memory Kiyoomi pushes Atsumu’s hand off his face and glares at a spot on the ground. “Nothing would’ve been different. It ended the way it should—”

_It didn’t_ , Sakusa wants to yell some sense into Kiyoomi, but he knows that his words will remain unheard, that this is a memory and the things that had happened in it will remain unchanged.

“I’ve always thought I’d find my way to ya, ya know?” Atsumu cuts him off, once more, and Sakusa can feel the helplessness in Atsumu’s voice, can see the accumulated pain and uncertainty in his actions. “I always thought that ya would find yer way to me, too.” He smiles, like he doesn’t even believe the words coming out of his mouth but wants to, wants so badly to believe them. “But maybe we both got lost in the middle of trying that we just never found each other.”

Memory Kiyoomi crosses his arms, looking away from Atsumu, “Please don’t tell me you’re going to confess to me on your wedding day.”

Atsumu barks out a laugh, “Nah, Omi-kun, I got the message loud and clear after the fortieth time of you telling me to fuck off.” He stops, stares, and Sakusa can almost believe that Atsumu isn’t as over the feeling as he’d like Kiyoomi to believe. But then, he blinks, and any lingering feeling he might have had for Kiyoomi is gone, just like that. “I think you’ll always have a part of my heart, Omi-kun, but a part is all there is—I just thought you should know that.”

Kiyoomi keeps his words unsaid, but Sakusa can somehow hear them anyway, rattling inside his brain, begging to be released.

_If you had asked me, one last time, to run away with you, I would’ve said yes._

It feels like the only thing left to say to get Atsumu to stay with him, to love him; but Kiyoomi never says it. Once an opportunity is gone, it’s gone forever—both the Kiyoomi and Atsumu of this world seem to know it and they seem to accept it.

Sakusa really hopes that he won’t have to.

* * *

His vision blurs and clears, and he’s back to his original dreamscape, the in-between, as he’s started to call it.

The cracks in the ceiling have disappeared, and he can see the entire place in all its glory now. A gymnasium, he thinks, a place he’s gotten to know after a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

_The Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium_ , his heart reminds him, gently, like it’s still worried he hasn’t come out from all the painful memories. _The place where you first met Atsumu_.

He smiles to himself and sighs. It’s been a long dream, he thinks, standing up and coming face-to-face with all four versions of himself, all the Sakusa Kiyoomi’s that he’s met in the dream.

“Hey, Kiyoomi,” the first Kiyoomi he’d met says, smiling. “Did you learn everything you’ve come here to learn?” he asks, but judging by the smile he’s wearing, Sakusa thinks he already knows the answer.

Still, Sakusa smiles and nods, “I have,” he answers, suddenly feeling unwilling to wake up from this dream.

_And, who knows, you might even end up not wanting to wake up at all._

The words the first Kiyoomi had said replays itself in his mind, and he smiles wider, suddenly finding everything ridiculous, but so, so comforting. He’s glad to have had this dream, and he’s glad to have met the versions of himself that all lead different lives.

“I think I want it,” Sakusa tells them, the four versions of himself, all so grown-up and so experienced in life. “I think I want it all—with him, with Atsumu.” He lets out a shuddering breath, unsure yet so completely resolute. “I want a future with him, with all the slow dancing and cooking and gentle kisses,” he rambles on, feeling the weight of the emotions from all the different memories and the feeling of love that’s slowly blossoming in his heart. “I want everything with him—with Miya Atsumu. But—”

“I know,” the oldest Kiyoomi says. His face has softened miraculously since their first meeting, and Sakusa can feel the warmth radiating out of his every word, every glance. “It’s a nice thing to want.”

“But—but he doesn’t love me yet,” Sakusa continues. He doesn’t know why he feels like crying, doesn’t know the workings of the world or Miya Atsumu’s heart. He knows what Miya Atsumu looks like slow dancing to stupid songs, knows the exact shade of brown his eyes turn under the morning sunlight as he leans in to kiss him—he knows all of that, yet he doesn’t know what it feels like to have Atsumu’s heart. Not yet. And Sakusa doesn’t really want to wait. “How do I go back to reality after this? How do I go back after seeing some of your lives where we’re together? How—?”

It feels so good to be loved, to be loved by Miya Atsumu, who does things so fervently, so wholeheartedly, that Sakusa suddenly doesn’t know how to wake up and leave all that behind.

The Kiyoomi of the third timeline smiles, “The great thing about waking up from this dream, Kiyoomi, is that you still have a whole life in front of you. The future isn’t set in stone, and you get to discover so many different things we’ve already discovered. You’re allowed to take detours and find out who you are. The future is all yours—make one that you can be proud of, and not just one where you’re trying to _be_ us.” He pauses, looking at all the other Kiyoomi’s. “And, you know what’s really exciting? We’ve lived lives where we already know what it’s like to love Atsumu and have him love us in return—but you? You’re going to experience all that, for the first time, and isn’t that something to look forward to?”

Sakusa swallows thickly, but manages a smile up at his future counterparts. “This sounds like a goodbye,” he says, looking at the versions of himself who have taught him so much in such a short amount of time. “You guys have to go now, don’t you?”

“It’s time for us to wake up now, yes,” the Kiyoomi from the second timeline answers with a curt nod. He gives Sakusa a long stare before sighing, “You will have to wake up soon, too.”

The first Kiyoomi nods along in agreement, “Back to our realities,” he says, a comforting smile on his face. “We probably won’t see you again, Kiyoomi, but I really hope you’ll have future you can look forward to.”

“Make it a good one,” the second Kiyoomi tells him with a small, barely-there smile. “And be happy.”

“You too,” Sakusa says, and he finds that he means it. “You still have a chance, you know—with Atsumu.”

The second Kiyoomi grins, the biggest one he’s given Sakusa, and nods in understanding. “Perhaps,” he replies. “Maybe when I wake up, I’ll see the world differently.”

“Don’t cling too much to our futures, Kiyoomi,” the third Kiyoomi then says. “Remember to make one for yourself, and for him.”

“It’s time for us to go now,” the oldest and final Kiyoomi says, looking like he dreads waking up, but knowing that he has to leave. He looks up at the ceiling, eyes glinting with something that Sakusa can only describe as nostalgia and regret. He wonders what his counterparts see, when they look up at the ceiling. “You know, I think he loves us, in every life,” he finally breathes out, a relieved smile on his face like he’s finally let go. “It may not be enough for some versions of us, but knowing he loved me, even for a little while—I think that’s enough for me.”

“I wanted to see a happy ending from your timeline,” Sakusa admits. He’d wanted a happy ending for all versions of himself. He had thought, foolishly, that Atsumu would love him in every single timeline, that he wouldn’t give up on them even if they never explicitly showed his love. But love is something that needs work from both parties—he’d forgotten the most essential thing in fostering a healthy relationship, and seeing the final memory reminded him of how hard he needs to work for it, for Atsumu.

The oldest Kiyoomi smiles, sadly, gently, like a flower that has passed its prime but is still so beautiful, “I’d wanted a happy ending too,” he tells Sakusa, like a secret, like a bad dream that’ll come to pass. “But I guess that’s just life.” He shrugs, “I’m just thankful there are so many other versions of us who get to love him, even if I don’t have the privilege to.”

Sakusa returns the smile, both so similar yet so different. He straightens himself and bows to all four of them, “Thank you,” he whispers, “for everything.” When he stands up straight again, the four other versions of him are gone, leaving him standing in an empty gymnasium, an empty dreamscape, an empty in-between, staring at the once occupied spaces.

He looks up at the high ceiling of the gymnasium and smiles, feeling the light surrounding him getting brighter and the air around him getting warmer.

He feels himself waking up.

With one last glance at the gymnasium, a dreamlike place where he might never return to, he closes his eyes.

The future is waiting for him, and he finds that can’t wait.

* * *

“… _Sakusa-kun_?”

Kiyoomi feels his body being dragged out from the bath and pries open his eyes to see what’s going on. The dream he’d had flutters around in his head, thoughts of reality and unreality mixing together and creating a cacophonous pounding in his head.

He groans and attempts to sit up, his eyes focusing and refocusing in quick recession, the blur in front of his eyes never seeming to clear. He shuts them again when he suddenly feels nauseous.

“Sakusa, are you okay?” the voice calls out again, sounding worried.

_That voice_ , Kiyoomi thinks, _he knows it_.

He’s heard it before, he remembers, inside the altar when he says his vows to someone who is not Kiyoomi, on the balcony of a banquet as he calls Kiyoomi out, inside their shared bedroom when his voice is nothing but soft whispers and gentle tones, inside their kitchen when he sings a song under his breath as he slow dances with Kiyoomi.

He knows that voice, he thinks, loves it, with every fiber of his being and every inch of his heart.

He knows that voice, knows _Atsumu_.

Kiyoomi pries his eyes open and forces his eyes to focus on the blurry silhouette in front of him until it’s all that he can see, can feel, can think about.

“Sakusa?” the figure asks, once more, his voice and his features so familiar that it makes Kiyoomi’s heart ache.

It feels like being reborn from the ashes, a feeling close to his heart that he can’t quite explain yet. But he’ll get there, he knows—he’ll understand.

His head clears and the corners of his lips twitch. There’s something there between them, a small flower waiting to blossom, a bird stretching its wings in preparation.

He smiles and lets his lips form one word—his present, his future—and lets it take flight.

“Atsumu?”

**Author's Note:**

> i made the ending open-ended so yall can imagine their future together or sumn
> 
> honestly idk if they're gonna end up together after the ending but i'd like to think that they do since sakusa's gonna want it enough to try
> 
> and, tbh,, i imagine that atsumu gets the dream too, with future versions of himself, but that's a story for another time.
> 
> but,,, yeah, that's all i really have to say about the fic so,,, uh,,, i hope you all enjoyed it and tysm for reading!
> 
> EDIT: i saw that someone made an [edit](https://twitter.com/AK99SHI/status/1286317439857246208) for this fic!! go give the creator some love!!


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